The Sound of… Silence? What Can You do About Aerial Queefing?

A lovely Dear Dangler recently sent me this query, and I wanted to throw this out to you, Hive Mind.

Queef: noun: an expulsion of air through the vagina.

“I am stressed and embarrassed about doing straddle inverts, as well as other general invert moves.

The problem is that with the damage from my pregnancy when I invert my organs move down towards my head causing a vacuum and sucking in air, caused the dreaded queef.

I love silks, it is my joy at the moment but I was so mortified the first time it happened. I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but I am constantly stressed about it.

Do you have any recommendations to help solve the problem???”

Pre-pregnancy, when I would base trapeze, sometimes this would happen to me (we called me “Queen La-Queefia, and joked that I could propel our roll-around-the-bars with the force of them). It tended to happen when we were returning to trapeze after a short hiatus, so I suspect I was allowing my pelvic floor muscles to to relax a bit.

Does anyone have any words of wisdom for this quizzical queefer? It’s awful when something like this stands in the way of something you love. OK, Hive Mind! GO!!!! If you have any thoughts or recommendations, please leave them in the comments below! Love and pull-ups, Laura

As always, if you like this post, share it on your blog, the F-books, Twitter, and wherever else you crazy kids are sharing things these days.

I once had a teacher who said to the ten ladies in the room, “gals the queef, is a part of aerial nature- embrace it!” It is part and parcel of what we do and as an instructor of ten years I have had my fair share of embarrassing moments- for newbies I have learned to talk over my straddle descent so that they couldn’t be heard! For more advanced classes I have taken the road of talking openly about it- more often you see relief rather than awkward expressions as everyone experiences it 🙂

I was on tour once and in a rehearsal room predominantly filled with males on a daily basis. After already been crowned “bagpipes” I was a little self conscious and knowing the inevitable was about to happen, I hopped out of my acro move, squeezed tight and ran outside. Obviously not far enough as I came back in and they had all heard it. I just have to laugh!

Physiotherapist here. You need to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. Kegel exercises are the most common example of these, but lots of pilates exercises can also help. The easiest way to get the most tailored treatment to you is to go see a Womens Health Physiotherapist.

Oh man, this is totally a problem I’m familiar with! When I asked one of my teachers once, she told me, “well, the girl’s going to bark,” which was actually helpful knowing that it’s essentially a normal thing for aerials (aside from being wicked funny).

Another quick tip in a pinch is to play music in the studio. I enjoy that anyway as I’m a musician, and a little bit of music goes a long way in covering up such things. It doesn’t have to be super loud, especially for class situations of course, but I’ve found that helpful myself.

I’m intrigued to try kegels and see if that helps. Happy to hear more hive mind stuff too!

This problem has gone away for me over the years and I’m not sure why, except that my two kids are now 15 and 18, so that trauma to my parts is ancient history. I did use the tampon approach and it definitely helped. I totally agree that we need to normalize this by talking about it (and joking!) in our studios.

I’d like to weigh in a bit on the Kegel recommendation by urging you all to check out the article below which does a great job of summarizing the brilliant Katy Bowman’s advice – which is to STOP doing Kegel’s. One of these days I’ll post it on my Airtech with Lisa E FB group so we can work together to better understand the relationship to core engagement, which I think is significant. Enjoy!

Thanks again Laura for discussing another issue we are too embarrassed to raise with our teachers! Realistically when our whole bodyweight is suspended by our midsection for prolonged periods with abs clenched, we are going to expel air. But it somehow only happens when the training space is otherwise silent.

After 3 kids 15, 13, 11 it happens to me but only when I start out stretching. Down dog with one leg in the air gets me every time. But…. I can now control the air to some degree by using all the muscle in the down dog. Which is embarrassing still like in a quiet yoga class. It doesn’t happen in the air but it could be because I get it out of my system early when it stretch. I have found the doing the down dog with a leg up before any public stretching or aerial helps. Or turn up the music.

I love all you ladies and I don’t think I know any of you. Just sharing and knowing others are out there helps! Yes, music helps – it doesn’t even have to be loud. I’m more in the boat with Jennifer. My 3 kids are 22, 19 and 16. If it happens at all these days, it happens early when stretching. I’d definitely try the tampon route.

On a semi-related unmentionable, I always wear panty shields as well. I tend to really sweat in my groin crease and that helps absorb some of that, but really it helps with jumping jacks, trampoline or static and lyra with pressure on the front abdomen and the, um, errant dribble.

Sometimes when you’re closer to that time of the month, your vaginal walls start opening up. I’m pretty on top of my Kegals but it still happens to me. I put in a tampon every time I train, just incase and to save me the embarrassment. I use a lot more tampons than I used to but it works.

Read the article about squats rather than kegels. I’ve switched to doing squats with the emphasis on tightening up the glutes & have just about quit with the kegels. I’m seeing a lot of improvement with the queefing problems.

I have been doing aerials for almost 3 years I noticed it got worse when I took a long break (over 2 weeks) and just after my period but I have been told by many people eg doctors and trainers the tampon method is actually really bad for you! So please be careful